WritPlan3

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Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas

Overview

Studying history teaches us, in many ways, how to think: about the past, about the world around us, and about how that world might look in the future.

Writing history, on the other hand, teaches us how to communicate: how to organize our thoughts, distill our research findings into a clear thesis statement, and tailor our message to the needs of our chosen audience.

In Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas, we'll explore how historians go about the business of writing history. To illustrate this process, we'll examine case studies involving the women's movement and the centurieslong fight to expand the rights of American women.

Because all good historical writing begins with good research, we'll look at how to assess primary and secondary sources—which ones are appropriate for an academic research paper, and which ones aren't— and how best to search for them in Shapiro Library and primary resource depositories.

We'll also look at how historians turn their research into a coherent written work. The process begins with a research question; based upon research, a historian will then come up with an answer to that question, which forms the basis of his or her thesis statement. Finally, the historian considers the audience that he or she will be writing for—is it other historians, or local businesspeople, or maybe high school students?—and tailors the thesis statement into a message that's appropriate for that audience.

At the end of Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas, you'll have an opportunity to begin putting these concepts to use. You will be required to submit a writing plan that details the topic of your own historical event analysis; the primary and secondary sources you plan to use; the audience for your analysis; and how you plan to tailor your message to that audience.

While the writing plan represents an important element of your final course grade, in the long run it's even more important than that. In the "real world" outside the classroom, good writing is a valuable but all too rare commodity. Whether you pursue a career in business or science or medicine or the arts, you're going to need to organize your thoughts and communicate your ideas clearly, concisely, and forcefully. Writing history is a good way to learn how to do just that.

Course Outcomes

After completing this theme, you should be able to:

Select appropriate and relevant primary and secondary sources in investigating foundational historic events Communicate effectively to specific audiences in examining fundamental aspects of human history

A monument to three pioneers of the woman suffrage movement—Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott—in the U.S. Capitol. (Click icon for citation)

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 3-1: The Long Road to Women's Rights

The Constitution, as originally written and ratified, had nothing to say about women's rights—indeed, it had nothing to say about women at all.

The Constitution's original language was strictly genderneutral, referring repeatedly to "persons" or "citizens," rather than to "men" or "women." Gender distinctions did not enter the Constitution until 1868, with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which addressed the voting rights of all "male...citizens."

In this theme, we will look at two crucial events in the long campaign to expand the rights of American women. The woman suffrage movement, which fought to extend the right to vote to all American women, ended successfully in 1920 with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. But the effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed women all the same legal rights as men, ended in defeat in 1982, when the amendment fell three states shy of the 38 needed for ratification.

We will use these two case studies to examine the historical concept of causality and to learn more about evaluating and searching for primary and secondary sources. Evaluating sources is important, because it helps you make sure that whatever research you use in your academic research paper is appropriate.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Be introduced to the core concept of this theme: The Long Road to Women's Rights Explore the historical concept of causality

The Long Road to Women's Rights

The Constitution the Founders crafted was a product of British common law and 18thcentury thinking, neither of which was particularly friendly to women. At the time of the Constitution's ratification, for instance, a woman's rights depended almost entirely on her marital status: in most states, unmarried women, including widows, could own property, enter into contracts, and live where they pleased. But the rights of married women were totally subordinated to the rights of their husbands. (Salmon, 2016)

Moreover, by establishing a system of federalism, the Constitution left most questions of daytoday rights—the right to vote, to marry, to inherit property—to the states, whose policies were highly restrictive toward women. At the time of ratification, New Jersey was the only state that allowed women to vote—and it rescinded that right in 1807.

The long campaign to expand the rights of American women has gone on for almost two centuries, and it has seen both victories and defeats. In Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas, we will focus on two major goals of the women's rights movement. The Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote, was ratified, after decades of effort, in 1920. But the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have ensured women "equality of rights under the law," was defeated after a contentious national debate that came to a close in 1982.

The women's rights movement began in earnest in July 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention, a two day gathering in upstate New York that drew 300 participants "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." Its principal organizers, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had met eight years earlier at the World's AntiSlavery Convention in London—at which the women delegates, including Mott, were barred from speaking and were required to sit in a segregated area. (Wellman, 2004)

The following chart summarizes some of the major historical factors that led to the birth of the women's movement at the Seneca Falls Convention:

Members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, before a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson. (Click icon for citation)

The Seneca Falls Convention was the product of a wide range of historical factors:

The rise of the abolition movement, many of whose leaders strongly encouraged the participation of women; The religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening, which inspired many women to become active in social causes; The influence of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, some of whose more progressive branches advocated an expanded role for women in religious affairs; and The political movement in support of Married Women's Property Acts, state laws that accorded married women some limited economic rights. (Wellman, 2004; Library of Congress, 2013)

The Seneca Falls Convention produced the famous "Declaration of Sentiments," based on the Declaration of Independence, which included the simple but radical assertion: "We hold these truths to be selfevident: that all men and women are created equal." The Declaration was followed by a series of 13 Resolutions calling for legal and social equality for women, including the assertion that "it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." (This link will take you to the full text of the Declaration of Sentiments.)

In its early years, the women's movement focused on economic and social issues, including the lack of educational opportunities for girls and women. The advent of the Civil War brought an almost exclusive focus on the abolition of slavery, but while the end of the war meant an end to slavery, it also created profound disappointment for many women'srights advocates. The failure of Congress to include women in the guarantees of legal and voting rights, which were extended to freed slaves in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, caused a schism in the women's movement.

While leaders of the movement agreed on the goal of woman suffrage—securing for women the right to vote—they disagreed strongly over the best way to achieve that goal. In 1869, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), which focused on changing federal law; the NWSA opposed the Fifteenth Amendment because it excluded women. That same year, Lucy Stone, a prominent lobbyist for women's rights, helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which supported the Fifteenth Amendment and focused its efforts at the state level. (U.S. House of Representatives, 2016)

While these two groups would eventually unite, more than 50 years would pass before woman suffrage would be enshrined in the Constitution by the Nineteenth Amendment. And, with the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, the larger goal envisioned by those who attended the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848—full legal equality for all American women—has yet to be realized.

References

Library of Congress, American Women. (2013, February 13). Married Women's Property Laws. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property_law.html

Salmon, M. (2016). The Legal Status of Women, 17761830. Retrieved from http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history byera/womenshistory/essays/legalstatuswomen1776%E2%80%931830, May 16, 2016.

U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives; Office of the Historian, Women in Congress, 1917 2006. (2016). The Women's Rights Movement, 1848 1920. Retrieved from http://history.house.gov/ExhibitionsandPublications/WIC/HistoricalEssays/NoLady/WomensRights/, April 27, 2016.

Wellman, J. (2004). The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Women's Rights Convention. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Historical Causality

One purpose of history is to explain the past—and the concept of causality is fundamental to that effort. (Munro, 2016)

Searching for the causes of a historical event means, essentially, looking for an explanation of why the event occurred. But that search is rarely as simple as many people think.

Indeed, one of the most important things to remember about historical causality is that historical events usually have many causes. The process of sorting out all those causes and figuring out which ones were more important than others is rarely easy.

Back in grammar school, you may have been asked questions like "What caused the Revolutionary War?" or "Why did the South secede from the Union?" Depending on how lenient your teacher was back then, you might have gotten away with simple answers such as "Taxation without representation" or "To protect slavery." But by now, you should realize that those simplistic answers didn't tell the whole story. (Waring, 2010)

Historical events almost always have multiple causes. Consider a quick example: in Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas, we are looking at the centurieslong effort to expand the rights of American women. One important part of that effort was the campaign for woman suffrage, which we will look at in more detail in Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas, Learning Block 34.

American women won the right to vote when, after more than 70 years of campaigning for suffrage, they saw the Nineteenth Amendment ratified in 1920—but why was this Amendment finally approved? To put it another way, what factors caused the women's suffrage movement to succeed, after so many decades of frustration and failure?

There are a lot of factors that led to the success of the women's suffrage movement: strong leadership of women such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul; changing attitudes toward the role of women in society and in the workplace; the role of women in supporting the war effort during World War I and the war's impact on the public's conception of "democracy"; the extension of voting rights to freed African Americans, through the Fifteenth Amendment; political decisions by leaders such as President Woodrow Wilson; and the political momentum from successful local campaigns to win woman suffrage in more than a dozen states before 1920.

All of these causes contributed to the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Which was most important? As with so much else in the study of history, there's no definitive answer to that question; different historians may emphasize different causes, depending on which historical lens each applies and how each interprets the historical evidence. (Brien, 2013) As you evaluate different secondary sources, you will see how these differences in emphasis can lead to different conclusions about the relative importance of historical events.

References

Brien, J. (2013). "The Role of Causation in History" History in the Making Vol. 2, No. 1 72 81. Retrieved from https://historyitm.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/brien.pdf

Munro, N. (2016). Pathways: Causation in History. Retrieved from http://www.philosophypathways.com/essays/munro2.html, April 27, 2016.

Waring, S. (2010). "Escaping Myopia: Teaching Students about Historical Causality." The History Teacher Volume 43, Number 2 (February, 2010), 283 288. Retrieved from http://www.societyforhistoryeducation.org/pdfs/Waring.pdf

Types of Causes

In looking for the causes of a historical event, a primary consideration is chronology—that is, the order in which key events took place. (Waring, 2010) For one event to have caused another event, it must have taken place before the second event. But chronology does not tell us the whole story: just because one event happened before another does not necessarily mean that it caused the second event.

In a famous example often cited by logicians, the fact that a rooster crowed before sunrise does not mean that the rooster caused the sun to rise. This is an example of what logicians and historians call the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. (Carroll, 2015)

Historians also distinguish between proximate causes and ultimate causes. A proximate cause is an event that immediately precedes, or is directly responsible for causing, some other event. The proximate cause of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment was the vote by the Tennessee House of Representatives to approve the amendment on August 18, 1920.

An ultimate cause (also known as a distal cause) is an event that, when viewed at a higher level, may be considered to be the real reason an event occurred. One of the ultimate causes of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment was the shift in American public attitudes toward the role of women in society.

At the most simplistic level, a proximate cause tells us how an event happened; an ultimate cause is more likely to tell us why it happened. It's important to remember that most historical events have multiple proximate and ultimate causes. (Palazzo, 2007)

In considering the relative importance of different causes, historians often divide them into necessary causes and contributory causes. (Waring, 2010) A necessary cause is an event or trend that is essential to causing some other event; without the necessary cause, the second event could not take place. Approval by 36 state legislatures was a necessary cause for ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

By contrast, contributory causes are not essential to causing some other event, but they may make that event more likely to occur. President Woodrow Wilson's eventual decision to come out in favor of woman suffrage was a contributory cause for ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, but it was not an essential factor in the Amendment's success.

Once again, most historical events have multiple necessary and contributory causes.

References

Carroll, R. (2015, November 18). The Skeptic's Dictionary: post hoc fallacy. Retrieved from http://skepdic.com/posthoc.html

Palazzo, A. (2007, March 30). Transcription and Translation: Proximal vs. Ultimate Causation. Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/transcript/2007/03/30/proximalvsultimatecausation/

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 3-2: Secondary Sources

As you explore the case studies in this course, it should be apparent how important source material is to the study of history. In Theme: Approaches to History, you learned about the difference between primary and secondary sources, as well as how to search effectively in the databases available in the Shapiro Library. Of course, with the large amount of source material available to you, it is important to know the best way to sift through all the information.

In this learning block, you will learn strategies for evaluating secondary sources for relevancy to your essay, as well as their accuracy and objectivity. These skills will be essential in this course as well as while your pursue your future studies at SNHU.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Learn how to assess secondary sources for accuracy, relevancy, intent, and authoritativeness using the A.R.I.A. criteria Understand how to critically examine historical information on websites Become familiar with the kinds of secondary sources that are appropriate for use in your historical analysis essay Practice evaluating secondary sources and websites

Evaluating Secondary Sources

As you search through the databases at the Shapiro Library conducting research for your historical analysis essay, you are probably finding that there are a lot of sources that cover your chosen historical topic. You are expected to use scholarly sources in this course. It is important to examine all of your sources with a critical eye in order to determine their validity.

When evaluating secondary sources, you should keep the following things in mind. You can remember these criteria with the acronym A.R.I.A., which stands for accuracy, relevancy, intent, and authoritativeness.

Accuracy

Correct information is necessary in any scholarly source.

Ask these questions:

Has the source been peerreviewed? Has the author supplied a list of references, and does that list include scholarly sources? Is the source logical, organized, professional in appearance, and free of spelling and grammatical errors?

Look for: the author's reference list, information about the publisher or the journal, and the full text of the source for errors and organization

Avoid: sources that do not have a reference list, sources with grammatical errors, and sources that have not gone through an editorial process or peer review

Relevancy

When scrutinizing the relevancy of a source, you should consider if it answers your question or contributes to your research. When looking at secondary sources, you should also consider if the author's interpretation of the topic or issue is relevant to your original research question. As you learned in Theme: Approaches to History, there are different historical lenses a historian might apply when studying an event. Just because an article is about your topic does not mean it is necessarily relevant to your research.

Ask these questions:

Does the source provide a general overview of your topic or does it focus on a specific aspect of your topic? Who is the intended audience for the source? Does the source assume you have prior knowledge about your topic? How many sources have you found so far? Have you searched thoroughly enough to find relevant sources? When was this source published? If the source is a website, does it list the date that it was last updated?

Look for: the abstract or summary of an article, the subject and search terms associated with the source, and scan the full text of the source; the date of publication of a print or database source; the date last updated on a website (usually at the bottom of the page) or the date of publication on a blog

Avoid: sources that include content that is too narrow or too broad for your research; sources that include outofdate information and websites that do not have a "last updated date"

Intent

It's all right to use sources that contain strong arguments or opinions, but it is necessary to acknowledge the author's biases.

Ask these questions:

If the author is arguing for or against something, what point of view does he or she represent? Does the source contain mostly factual information or is it based on opinions? Who published this piece? Is it associated with an organization that is known for promoting a certain point of view?

Look for: the abstract, summary, or table of contents (if available), scan the full text of the source, the author's and publisher's affiliations and other works

Avoid: sources that include few facts and statistics, primarily opinionbased (though these can have a place in research), and sources from an organization known for promoting certain viewpoints

Authoritativeness

Consider the author's level of expertise on the topic.

Ask these questions:

Who is the author? What are the author's credentials? Is he or she an expert on the topic? Is the source published or sponsored by a reputable organization?

Look for: the author's credentials and affiliation, other sources written by the author, and the publisher's credentials

Avoid: sources from authors who have no credentials or expertise

Evaluating Websites

There is plenty of information on the Internet, but you probably already know that it isn't always correct. Evaluating web resources, such as websites and blogs, requires attention to certain detail that you might not need to think about when looking at scholarly journals in the Shapiro Library database.

In addition to using the A.R.I.A. criteria explained on page 1 of this learning block, there are certain aspects of websites that you need to examine. Anyone can post anything online, which is why it is necessary to be a critical consumer of information you find online.

First, ask yourself: How did you find this website? Did a reliable source recommend or cite it? Was it linked from a reputable website? Did you find it through a search engine?

Domain

What kind of website is it? Different websites require different levels of evaluation.

Domain Used by Reliability Example

.com Commercial, business, media outlets, or anything else

Low reliability; needs thorough evaluation

History Channel: http://www.history.com

.org Organizations or non profits; professional and medical organizations usually use this domain

Low reliability; needs thorough evaluation

American Historical Association: http://www.historians.org

.edu Educational institutions; information about the institution or content created by professionals at the institution

Medium reliability; requires some evaluation, because some institutions allow non experts to develop content for their websites

Shapiro Library Research Guides: http://libguides.snhu.edu/

.gov Government agency or department

High reliability, but as with anything on the Internet, it might require some evaluation. The information on these domains is regulated.

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov

Last updated date

This information shows you how recent the information is. Most high quality websites, especially from government agencies, will include this date. You can usually find an update date or publication date at the bottom of the webpage or below the title of the article.

Functionality & design

There's a lot to be said for a wellorganized, professionallooking website. Although appearances are not everything, if the website is easy to navigate and includes a userfriendly menu, it is a good indication that the organization has put thought into the design and information presented. Check the website for grammatical and spelling errors, broken links, and popups and advertisements. These might be signs that the website's information requires more scrutiny.

Exercise: Examining Scholarly Sources

As you research sources for your historical event analysis, you will encounter many scholarly journal articles. These might feel daunting at first. If you break them down by initially evaluating them using the [?]A.R.I.A.[/?] criteria, they will become more approachable. In this exercise, you will examine a sample journal article about the woman suffrage movement and answer questions about it.

The following passage is excerpted from a scholarly journal article titled "The Limits of State Suffrage for California Women Candidates in the Progressive Era". This reading is provided by the Shapiro Library. Click on the link to view the full text of the article. You will have to log into Shapiro Library with your SNHU credentials to access this article.

Examine information from the article below. You will be asked questions based on your evaluation.

The Limits of State Suffrage for California Women Candidates in the Progressive Era

Author: Linda Van Ingen Source: Pacific Historical Review. February 2004, Vol. 73 no. 1, pp. 2148

The author is a Professor of Women's Studies, 20th Century United States, Race and Gender, and Historical Methods in the history department at the University of Nebraska, Kearney.

Subject terms: History Women politicians

ABSTRACT

California women gained the right to run for the state legislature and Congress when they won the vote in 1911. Coming nine years before the Nineteenth Amendment enfranchised women nationally in 1920, this era of state enfranchisement appeared ripe for women's electoral success. The ongoing national suffrage movement, the California Progressive Party, and the extensive network of California women's clubs could all have worked to advance women's candidacies. Instead, these factors created conditions that undermined women's political ambitions. Not until 1918, when passage of a national suffrage amendment seemed imminent and the power of the Progressive Party in California faded, did women find success as candidates. Their delayed victories reveal the limits of state enfranchisement for women's political power.

When women won the vote in California in 1911, they also won the right to run for elective office on the state and national levels. Granted the rights of full citizenship long before the national suffrage amendment passed in 1920, California women began to run for office at their first opportunity in 1912, when ten women ran for their party's nomination in the primary elections. Most of these candidates ran as thirdparty contenders on either the Socialist or Prohibition tickets. Only one ran as a majorparty candidate: Mary Ella Ridle, of San Luis Obispo, who ran for the State Assembly as a Democrat. Exceptional in her bid as a majorparty candidate, Ridle nevertheless shared the experience of failure with the other women. Indeed, no California woman won office until 1918, seven years after the state enfranchised women. Clearly, women faced obstacles as candidates. As Ridle noted at the time, "there has never been a step taken in history that has not received its share of derision. It is the usual fate of innovations of any kind. However, someone has to make a start. In accepting this candidacy I feel that I am filling that want." 1 Her bold efforts, however, had little impact. As this article argues, possessing the rights of full suffrage

before ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment actually impeded California women's opportunities for electoral office. Women like Ridle had little chance of winning office on the state and national levels.

At first glance, this era of enfranchisement for women before 1920appeared ripe for political success. The national suffrage movement was constantly revisiting its cause as political and social circumstances changed; it could have welcomed the advancement of women as candidates. The Progressive Party, needing women as political workers, saw itself as inclusionary and championed women. With California playing a critical role in its plans to become a permanent party, it could have supported Progressive women candidates. Clubwomen understood the process of public policymaking and the value of their leadership. They could have extended their interests to women's candidacies. Indeed, all these factors could have encouraged women's candidacies. The evidence shows they did not.

Instead, these factors worked against women running for office in the Golden State. The importance of California suffrage to the national suffrage movement, the rise of the Progressive Party in the state, and the critical role played by women's clubs in both the suffrage and Progressive movements created conditions that impeded women's success as candidates for state or national office.2 This article examines the dissuasive tactics of national suffragists, the obstacles placed by organized clubwomen—including the ideals of women's noncompetitive altruism, solidarity, and nonpartisanship—and the impact of the California Progressive Party, as the party in power, on women's electoral ambitions for higher office. While these factors overlap significantly, when considered independently they reveal the extent to which a woman's ability to run for office in California was thwarted during the years preceding national suffrage. Only when the burden of a national suffrage movement eased and the power of California Progressivism faded in 1918 did California women find some success in their bids for office. Ironically, however, state enfranchisement had by then limited women's political power by establishing a bias against women as partisan candidates, a bias that would follow women into the 1920s and beyond.3

Notes

1. San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram, July 31, 1912, p. 4. 2. See Jackson K. Putnam, "The Progressive Legacy in California: Fifty Years of Politics, 1917 1967," in William Deverell and Tom Sitton, eds., California Progressivism Revisited (Berkeley, 1994), 248; Donna C. Schuele, "'A Robbery to the Wife': Culture, Gender and Marital Property in California Law and Politics, 18501890" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1999), 206215. 3. While four women won State Assembly seats in 1918, only ten more would do so in the five decades that followed, from 1920 to 1970. See Linda Van Ingen, "Campaigns for Equality: Women Candidates for California State Office, 19121970" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Riverside, 2000).

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 3-3: Primary Sources

Utilizing primary sources in your research allows you to apply your own interpretation of historical events, rather than relying completely on the words of other historians. Examining primary sources gives you the chance to express your own opinions about historical events. Primary sources are just a piece of the puzzle of history, so they encourage you to look for additional evidence to understand historical context.

Your research will be more meaningful if you base your conclusions on evidence and original documents, rather than other people's interpretations and understanding of events. In this learning block, you should plan to devote at least one hour to independent research for your sources. As you research, take note of names, themes, events, and subjects that keep appearing in the secondary sources. These are potential search terms for finding primary sources that apply to your project.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Learn how to evaluate and interpret primary sources Understand the importance of critically examining source material in your everyday life Practice critically examining primary sources Conduct independent research for the writing plan for your historical analysis essay

Guidelines for Using Primary Sources

Primary sources, by their very nature, can only give you partial understanding of an event. You can think of primary sources as a snapshot of an event: one source cannot show you what is going on behind the camera. You need many different pictures to put together the pieces of the puzzle. As a researcher and student of history, you will have to fill in the gaps with your own background knowledge.

This limitation is why you should begin your research with secondary sources. Once you have a basic knowledge of the topic you are researching and a general understanding of historians' arguments and interpretations, you can start looking for primary sources that will contribute to your essay.

In Theme: Approaches to History, you saw examples of databases where you can find primary sources. Shapiro Library has many suggestions for digital collections that include primary sources such as photographs, manuscripts, and documents.

Primary Source Databases

The list below includes some suggestions of resources for you to search for primary sources. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but it is a good place to start.

American Memory: This database is maintained by the Library of Congress, and it has many primary source documents related to American history. David Rumsey Map Collection: This collection has over 67,000 maps and images from around the world. Primary Source Sets: This collection from the Library of Congress provides primary source sets for selected key topics in American History.

Searching for Primary Sources

Searching for primary sources will probably be a little different from searching for secondary ones. Often primary source databases will categorize documents and images by subject, time period, or event. Many of the databases listed above also offer a search function. You should utilize the keywords you chose in Theme: Approaches to History that are related to your topic to search.

Your secondary sources can also direct you to primary sources, often listed in the footnotes or bibliography of a source. Although some websites charge for access to their primary source databases, many libraries and archives provide access to primary sources for free.

Analyzing Primary Sources

Our knowledge of history comes from our interpretation of sources and events. The recording of historical events are influenced by the personal, social, or political opinions of the authors or participants in an event. As a student of history, you will encounter conflicting viewpoints of an event. As you write your historical analysis essay, pay attention to the different interpretations of your topic that you encounter.

100 Milestone Documents: From the National Archives, this collection includes documents that chronicle American history from 1776 to 1965. Original and transcribed copies are both available. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC): This database includes photographs, drawings, prints, and drawings that represent close to 95% of the holdings in the Library of Congress. Smithsonian Source: A collection of primary sources from the Smithsonian Institute that can be searched by keyword, topic, or type of source. Harvard Digital Collections: These collections are grouped by time period and subject. Center for Creative Photography: Archives of photographs from modern North America's photographers.

Ask yourself these questions when evaluating a primary source:

When was it written or created? Who was the intended audience? How reliable is the information presented? Some documents are written for propaganda purposes or an eyewitness account might be distorted. Crosscheck your source with others from the time period. Do they contradict each other? Who is the author or creator? Why did he or she write it? Can you detect a bias? Are there any internal contradictions in the source? What words does the author use that might point to his or her biases and assumptions? What biases am I bringing to my interpretation of the source?

Assessing Sources in the Nonacademic World

You encounter sources of information daily: an article that your friend shares on social media, the podcast you're listening to, or the book you're reading, for example. As a student, you should approach information in the nonacademic world with a critical eye. You should check the references for the things you read, especially online, just as you examine the references in scholarly journal articles you find for use in your historical event analysis essay.

The following exercise will show you how to critically examine an article you find online. This process will be useful in your research for this course, future courses at SNHU, and your professional life. The subject of the article is relevant to the topic of the historical case studies in this theme: The Long Road to Women's Rights.

Critical Source Analysis

For example, let's say a friend of yours on Facebook posts a link to an article about the Equal Rights Amendment. The title of the article is "What is the Equal Rights Amendment? A Landmark Piece of Feminist Legislation Every Feminist Should Know About". You click on the link and start reading the article.

You should first notice a few things. The date it was published (August 25, 2015) and where it is published (bustle.com). Using the skills you have learned in this course, you should already be evaluating this article for accuracy, relevancy, intent, and authoritativeness (A.R.I.A.). Some questions you might ask yourself are: What credentials does this website have? Does this website primarily publish scholarly research? Who is this article directed at?

A quick glance around the website will reveal that this is not a scholarly source, and the articles are not exclusively devoted to history. There are a lot of advertisements on the site. The title of the article makes it apparent who the author is appealing to: feminists or people who are interested in women's issues.

You keep reading:

Since this is not a scholarly journal article, chances are there will not be an official reference section at the end of the piece. The author has linked to a source in the text, though. You should click on that link to see what the source is. The link directs you to a website about the history of the ERA.

Use the A.R.I.A. criteria to evaluate this source, as well as the skills you have learned to evaluate websites. The website is http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/history.html. The domain of this website is .org, which means it needs thorough evaluation, since its reliability is low. However, this page does have some primary and secondary source references, so you can check those as well.

You should read the rest of this article on your own, using the methods outlined here to evaluate the information and sources.

This Wednesday is Women's Equality Day, and in this case, the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which officially gave women the right to vote. Aug. 26 was officially declared Women's Equality Day in 1972. Incidentally, although Women's Equality Day was slated out to celebrate the 19th amendment specifically, 1972 also saw the initial passage of another pretty important amendment: the Equal Rights Amendment, or the ERA. So, what exactly is the Equal Rights Amendment? Oh, it's only one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of feminism. Women's Equality Day might be celebrating the 19th amendment, but it's important that we refamiliarize ourselves with the sections and history of the equallyimportant ERA, which still has yet to be passed after falling three states short for ratification in 1982.

Conclusion

What should you take away from a closer examination of this article? Although at face value, the article dispenses useful information and links to accurate sources, the article itself is not a good source. This type of source would not be appropriate to cite in your historical analysis essay. The source's credibility is questionable, so you should not take its contents at face value without further evaluation.

This exercise is meant to show you how to critically examine the things you read, whether you encounter it in a newspaper editorial, on social media, or in the research for your historical analysis essay. Keep these tips in mind as you do research for this course and future courses, and you will become a critical consumer of information.

References

Cheung, K. (2015, August 25). What Is The Equal Rights Amendment? A Landmark Piece Of Legislation Every Feminist Should Know About. Retrieved from http://www.bustle.com/articles/106301whatistheequal rightsamendmentalandmarkpieceoflegislationeveryfeministshouldknowabout

The Equal Rights Amendment. Retrieved from http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/history.html

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 3-4: Thesis Statements

In your historical analysis essay, you will not only be asking a research question, but you will attempt to answer it and argue your position with the help of historical evidence.

Your thesis statement will provide an outline for your argument, and it will work as a guide for anyone reading your essay. Your thesis statement should be clear, specific, arguable, and defensible from the sources that you have available to use in your research. It will give direction to the rest of your essay. The more practice you have creating thesis statements, the better you will be at forming coherent arguments in your writing. This is a crucial component of communicating historical ideas.

You will practice writing sample thesis statements as well your thesis statement in this learning block. Although you will submit a working thesis to your instructor for feedback, you will have the opportunity to revise your thesis before submitting the final draft of your historical analysis essay in Theme: Thinking About History, Learning Block 84.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Explore the relationship between your research question and your thesis statement Practice crafting thesis statements Discuss your thesis statement with your classmates Submit your working thesis statement and choice of sources to your instructor for approval

Developing a Thesis Statement

In your historical analysis essay, you will need to make an argument about the topic you are writing about; this argument needs to be supported by evidence from your research. An argument takes a stance; it is not simply a description or a summary of the information. Understanding how to construct an effective thesis statement will be an important skill for writing papers in your future classes. Furthermore, knowing how to support your claim with evidence is necessary in any argument.

In order to form a coherent argument, you will need a thesis statement. The thesis statement is the backbone of an essay, and therefore, writers often feel a lot of pressure to come up with a final, polished version of the statement right from the start. The problem with that method is that our perceptions and writing changes over time, so a thesis statement that was written at the start of the writing process may not end up aligning with ideas in the most recent draft.

Now that you have already begun the process of constructing your historical analysis essay, you are ready to construct the claim you are making. A thesis statement is a sentence in which you state your argument about a topic and then briefly describe how you will prove this argument. Your thesis statement can be more than one sentence long, but it should be succinct and specific. Your thesis statement should appear at the end of the introductory paragraph of your essay.

Forming an Argument

You have already formulated a research question, which means part of the work has been done towards forming your thesis statement. In order to write a good thesis statement, you should focus on one aspect of your topic. Your thesis statement should be specific, and you need to be able to support it with specific evidence.

There are a few strategies you can use to create your thesis statement.

1. Turn your research question into an assertion and give evidence and reasons for this argument. 2. Summarize the main idea of the essay you want to write, and turn that summary into an argument. 3. Use a formula to develop an initial thesis statement. For example, you can use the following formats to create an initial thesis:

Although most scholars of ________ have argued ________, further research shows________.

(Your historical topic) was a result of________, ________, and ________, rather than________, as most historians have argued.

________demonstrates that (your historical topic) was a combination of ________ and ________, contrary to the argument of ________.

For example, let's say your research question is:

In what specific ways did the Civil War affect the development of the Woman Suffrage Movement?

A thesis statement for this paper might start as something like:

By mobilizing women behind the national abolition movement, the Civil War introduced a generation of American women to political activism and helped pave the way for the success of the Woman Suffrage Movement.

However, this thesis statement could be stronger. Refine your initial thesis statement to be more specific. For example:

The right to vote had been a key goal of women's rights activists since the Seneca Falls Convention, but it was the Civil War—which mobilized women behind the national abolition movement—that introduced a generation of American women to political activism and made possible the success of the Woman Suffrage Movement. At the same time, ironically, postwar divisions over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments temporarily split the movement, and delayed the achievement of its ultimate goal.

It is clear what the writer is arguing with this thesis, and the writer makes it clear how that argument will be supported.

A thesis statement gives you an outline to your argument, a way to focus your ideas, and a structure to your paper. Each topic sentence of the body paragraphs of your essay should relate back to your thesis. Your thesis statement reflects the purpose of your essay, defines the scope of your argument, and influences what content will be included. The thesis statement is also useful for readers, since it keeps them focused on your argument and guides them through your essay. On the next page, you will practice creating the thesis statement for your essay.

The program for the Woman Suffrage Parade on March 3, 1913. (Click icon for citation)

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 4-1: The Woman Suffrage Movement and the Nineteenth Amendment

The Women's Movement: Suffrage

In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention's Declaration of Principles asserted women's "sacred right to the elective franchise." Over the course of the next 12 years, voting rights remained a major goal for the emerging women's rights movement, but they were not the movement's sole focus; economic, social, and educational issues also occupied prominent places on the movement's agenda. (U.S. House of Representatives, 2016)

The Civil War interrupted the regular business of the women's movement. The National Women's Rights Convention, which had been held annually since 1850, was suspended during the war, and most women's rights activists devoted themselves to the cause of abolition. In 1863, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony organized the Women's National Loyal League to campaign for a constitutional amendment to ban slavery. (DuBois, 1978)

Following the war, the right to vote became the central focus of the women's rights movement, but this issue precipitated a sharp division in the movement's leadership. It would take another five decades before women's right to vote would finally be enshrined in the Constitution.

This learning block uses the woman suffrage movement as a way to look at the issue of causality and to develop expertise in assessing and locating primary and secondary sources, in support of developing a research paper.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Analyze the causes of historical events Understand causality as it relates to the Woman Suffrage Movement Practice examining a scholarly journal article for information about causality

References

DuBois, E. (1978). Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 18481869. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Julia Ward Howe (Click icon for citation)

Winning the Right to Vote

At the close of the Civil War, the push to insure equal rights for former slaves ironically divided the women's movement, most of whose members had ardently supported abolition. That's because the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which guaranteed citizenship and voting rights, did not explicitly include women in their provisions. Some women's rights leaders, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, lobbied unsuccessfully against the two amendments.

In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), devoted to passing a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote, as well as promoting other women's rights issues, such as liberalizing divorce laws and ending pay discrimination. That same year Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which focused on a statebystate strategy for winning the right to vote, and did not address the other issues championed by the NWSA.

The two groups would eventually merge in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which focused solely on the right to vote, to the exclusion of other women's rights issues. This narrowed focus alienated some of the more radical women's activists, including Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, who favored a broader social agenda and a more militant approach.

The suffrage movement suffered a major setback in 1875, when the Supreme Court ruled, effectively, that a woman's right to vote was nowhere to be found in the Constitution as it was then written. Women's rights advocates had argued that the Fourteenth Amendment forbade the states from denying them a fundamental right of citizenship. But the Supreme Court rejected this argument, ruling in Minor v. Happersett that although women are citizens, voting is not one of the "privileges and immunities of citizenship" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the early years of the 20th century, the woman suffrage movement began to employ unconventional tactics to generate publicity and build public support for its cause. Suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who had worked with the more militant woman suffrage movement in Great Britain, organized a huge prosuffrage parade in Washington, DC in 1913 that attracted widespread attention after many of the marchers were heckled and mistreated by antisuffrage male onlookers.

Paul went on to form the National Women's Party, which staged disruptive protests outside the White House and organized prison hunger strikes among the arrested protesters.

While these tactics offended some leaders of the more conservative NAWSA, they kept the spotlight of public attention firmly focused on the issue of woman suffrage. (Adams, 2008) As such, they were significant contributory causes to the ultimate success of the woman suffrage movement.

President Woodrow Wilson, who took office one day after the parade and who was the object of frequent protests by woman suffrage activists outside the White House, finally lent his support to the cause in 1918. While his endorsement was hardly critical, it symbolized the acceptance of woman suffrage as inevitable by the national Democratic Party.

Congress subsequently approved the Nineteenth Amendment—which guaranteed women the right to vote at both the state and federal levels—in 1919. A year later, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, finally enshrining women's right to vote in the Constitution of the United States.

Christina KulichVamvakas, instructor in Government at Suffolk University, explains the eventual success of the Woman Suffrage Movement in this video:

Video Transcript: The Nineteenth Amendment

Christina Kulich-Vamvakas

The women's suffrage movement is really a hallmark movement in American politics for a number of different reasons.

First, it is the first significant national rights movement and it was unique in that...in its length, actually, and in the size of its organization. By the time that the 19th Amendment passed, women's suffrage organizations were by far better resourced, better organized, than any other national political movement, the national parties included, which were simply skeletons. And we're talking about, essentially, doubling...well, half...increasing significantly the size of the citizen pool, the number of available boats. Right?

So: time, organization, and resources led absolutely to the ultimate success. It was a long haul battle, right, for upwards of 80 years, but the growth of the organization and the capacity of the organization actually, I think, is probably the single most important recipe item in success.

References

Adams, K. (2008). Alice Paul and the American Woman Suffrage Campaign. Champaign, IL:: University of Illinois Press.

DuBois, E. (1978). Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 18481869. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Sheridan, H. (2001) "Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913" American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States. Washington, DC: Library of Congress.

Zahniser, J. and Fry, A. (2014) Alice Paul: Claiming Power. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Exercise: Further Readings

The following passage is from a scholarly journal article that looks at the importance of funding— specifically, large amounts of money donated to the woman suffrage movement by a relatively small number of wealthy women—in winning the right to vote for American women. In so doing, it suggests the importance of class—that is, socioeconomic status—as a factor in the history of the woman suffrage movement.

In general, the leaders of the American woman suffrage movement came from the upper classes of society, meaning that they tended to be more affluent and bettereducated than most American women. Looking at the role of socioeconomic class in the leadership of the woman suffrage movement could involve such varying lenses as social history, economic history, and Marxist history.

Read the passage below and then answer the question following it, keeping in mind the historical concept of causality as it relates to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote.

The passage below is excerpted from "Following the Money: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement", pages 65 to 66. Click on the title of the article to read, download, and print a copy of the text. These readings are provided by the Shapiro Library. This reading is required. You will have to log into Shapiro Library with your SNHU credentials to access this article.

Susan B. Anthony (right) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (left) (Click

icon for citation)

Salaries, State Campaigns, and the "Winning Plan"

The need for money drove the women's suffrage movement from its early days, leading [Elizabeth Cady] Stanton and [Susan B.] Anthony to compromise over whom they associated with during the 1860s. Wendell Phillips controlled two important bequests and allowed only a small amount to go to women's rights. "Nearly driven to desperation," Anthony needed money to pay for speakers, travel expenses, and tracts. She and Stanton thus accepted an offer by George Train, the notoriously racist Democrat, to pay for a speaking tour and newspaper.

Burned by her experience with Phillips, Anthony wanted wealthy women to prioritize giving to the movement. Suffragists understood that they could not depend on men; it would take the financial support of women to make change for women. It was only after Anthony's death in 1906, however, that they began to contribute enough money to turn the tide toward victory.

Staffing, one of the two major expenses identified by Stanton and Anthony, remained paramount until the vote was won in 1920. Lucy Stone's observation that "there would be plenty of helpers if there was plenty of money to pay" rang true. The suffrage movement from the 1880s through the early 1910s focused on winning the right to vote state by state, which depended on local and national traveling organizers barnstorming the states, drumming up publicity, and lobbying local politicians. Traveling organizers and national officers worked full time, giving public speeches, planning rallies, and helping to organize local suffrage associations. They brought experience and the ability to draw a crowd.

Neither local nor national suffrage organizations had enough funding to pay the significant salaries required. The situation was exacerbated, according to Lisa Tetrault, because women could earn a living through the lyceum lecture circuit in the 1870s 1880s, a popular form of entertainment and adult education featuring traveling lecturers and performers. They came to expect similar payment, typically between $10 and $100 per lecture, for an appearance at a suffrage meeting. Suffrage organizations thus had to compete with the lecture circuit when they paid speakers appearing at meetings or at their annual conventions at the state or national level.

The lack of money available to pay speakers was complicated by the unrealistic but idealistic idea that suffragists should volunteer their time for the cause. Quoting Wendell Phillips, Stanton claimed that "a reformer, to be conscientious, must be free from breadwinning." Suffrage associations were traditionally willing to hire paid organizers but usually did not pay their officers, who were expected to cover the costs of their correspondence and travel. [Only] welloff officers could do so.

If you're interested in reading more about the woman suffrage movement on your own, you might also be interested in these optional readings:

Wilson, Women and War: A brief article about President Wilson's decision to back woman suffrage, and the political links between the suffrage movement and Prohibition. You can read it at this link. Out of the Parlors and into the Streets: The Changing Tactical Repertoire of the U.S. Women's Suffrage Movements: An analysis of the development of new tactics, including suffrage parades, by the woman suffrage movement. You can read it at this link.

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 4-2: Communicating to Specific Audiences

When you are talking to someone in person, chances are, you probably adjust your manner of speaking to match whomever you are speaking with. When writing, you should make the same considerations for those who will be reading your paper. As you prepare to write anything—whether it is an email, cover letter, or college essay—you want to first consider your audience. Simply put, when writing, your audience is your intended reader.

In order to communicate effectively and clearly, you need to understand that different audiences respond to and understand different messages. In this course, you need to choose an intended audience for your historical analysis essay and cater your writing to that audience.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Be introduced to the concept of audience in academic writing Learn about the different types of audiences you might tailor your historical analysis essay toward Practice catering to certain audiences in your writing Understand the role of research and analysis in developing message Consider your choice of audience for your historical analysis essay

Types of Audiences

Who is the audience for your essay? Although the obvious answer might be "my instructor," that's not the only thing that audience means for the purposes of this assignment. Your instructor will read and grade your essay, but the audience of the essay is who you decide to speak to or cater to. Sometimes, it is not always clear who your audience might be, as you may have multiple audiences. You will need to choose an audience to write for in your historical analysis essay.

The audience you choose to write for is a group of people who might be attracted to or interested in your writing. Knowing who they are will help you understand their expectations for the content and format of your paper.

The content and tone of an essay on the impact of the introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress in 1923 will be different if you are writing for students or for professionals, for instance. Your choice of audience will influence how much background information you include about antiERA movements, for example. Writing for a specific audience will help you narrow the focus of your historical event analysis.

Analyzing Your Audience

By analyzing your audience, you will be able to write and argue more effectively. Some things to consider about your audience are who they are, how much they know about the topic, and the context in which they will be reading the writing (such as a journal or a magazine).

In general, you can think of your audience as being either academic or nonacademic. Knowing this about your audience will help you tailor your message and content of your essay and other writing. Of course, an audience can be a combination of the two.

An academic audience includes your instructors, other people in the field, and fellow students. An academic audience will be reading your paper for a grade or to evaluate the strength of your thesis and argument. They will probably have a critical eye toward the structure and details of your essay. When writing for this audience, you should consider what they might expect, such as wellsupported argument. A nonacademic audience will be reading the paper to gain information and use the information they learn.

The graphic below shows what you should consider when thinking about the audience you are writing for. Reflecting on the following questions may help you think more clearly about your audience in this course and future courses at SNHU.

Familiarity With Your Audience

In a classroom setting, you know your audience is your instructor and, often, your classmates. In this case, you know your intended audience (your instructor and your classmates), but your relationship with them is more formal and less familiar. As such, you cannot assume what level of familiarity they can expect in your writing.

Therefore, you should err on the side of formality any time your audience is unfamiliar and/or when the level of formality they expect from you may be unknown. When you write for a classroom assignment, you should always assume your instructor will expect a level of formality—unless the assignment explicitly asks you to be informal—regardless of how well you might know him or her.

It is, therefore, important to understand if your audience is:

familiar and known: a family member, a close friend, your partner or spouse unfamiliar and known: an audience who has come to listen to you talk about a shared interest (you share knowledge of the interest but do not known them personally), your college instructor (you know your instructor and are familiar with her but you do not know what she knows and does not know about any given topic), a new colleague, your boss, a distant relative, museum attendees unfamiliar and unknown: your new classmates, a random group of people listening to a public speech, blog readers

Types of Audiences

The graphic below elaborates on the different types of audiences. These three categories of audiences can be combined; for instance, your audience may be academic and known, but unfamiliar to you.

Audience and Message

By now you should have a beginning idea of what your thesis statement and argument will be in your essay. Once you analyze and get to know the audience you are writing for (or choose to be writing for), you will have a clearer understanding of what message to convey in your essay, which is closely related to your thesis. Knowing your audience allows you to select which details to include and which to leave out. Understanding their level of knowledge on the topic will help you decide how much information to include, how formal or informal your writing should be, and how subjective you should be in your writing.

When considering your audience, also remember why you are writing. The purpose of your writing is tied to the audience you are writing for. You should think about what you are trying to accomplish in your writing. For example, in your historical event analysis essay, you will be attempting to answer your research question by making an argument that ties back to your thesis statement.

As the writer of your essay, you need to communicate your message in a way that is tailored to your specific audience. You could consider your vocabulary, your audience's potential current knowledge of historical events, or lack thereof, and what is specifically important to the audience. Will your audience understand historical terminology and principles associated with your event, or will you need to explain these? All of these questions should be considerations when forming the message of your historical analysis essay. Crafting a succinct and clear message will make you a better writer in future courses, and in your daytoday life as well.

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 4-3: The Equal Rights Amendment

The Women's Movement: The ERA

In July 1923, just before the 75th anniversary of Seneca Falls Convention, Alice Paul announced that she would propose a new amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee the same legal rights to women and men. Originally known as Mott's Amendment in honor of Lucretia Mott, one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention, Paul's proposed amendment led to a sharp division in the feminist movement.

Supporters of the amendment, led by Paul's National Women's Party, argued that women should be legally equal with men in all respects. Opponents argued that strict equality would require the repeal of protective labor legislation designed to benefit women workers by, for example, requiring them to work shorter hours or exempting them from night work. In general, middleclass feminists tended to favor Paul's amendment while workingclass feminists—and organized labor in general—tended to oppose it. (Cott, 1990)

Some things to consider about your audience when writing your paper:

Will the audience expect you to cite scholarly sources? (In this course, the answer is yes!) Will the audience understand technical terms or jargon? How much background information will the audience know about the topic? Will the audience expect a particular format or point of view? (When writing for a class, it is usually best to check what formatting the instructor prefers.)

Lucretia Mott, by Joseph Kyle. (Click icon for citation)

A proERA march in Florida. (Click icon for citation)

Congress was not quick to embrace Paul's amendment. Indeed, it took nearly 50 years before a version of the proposal—by then known as the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA—won Congressional passage in 1972. And, while the path to ratification initially looked clear, opposition by social conservatives quickly surfaced; ten years later, the ratification deadline expired and the Equal Rights Amendment had been defeated. (Burris, 1983)

This learning block uses the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment as the vehicle to sharpen your skills of historical analysis and to help you think about tailoring your message for different audiences.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Develop a thesis statement for the analysis of a historical event Practice crafting and identifying messages for different audiences Practice examining a scholarly journal article Continue to work on your writing plan

References

Burris, V. (1983). "Who Opposed the ERA? An Analysis of the Social Bases of Antifeminism" Social Science Quarterly Vol. 64, Number 2 (June 1, 1983), 305 317.

Cott, N. (1990) "Historical Perspectives: The Equal Rights Amendment Conflict in the 1920s." in Hirsch, M. and Keller, E. eds., Conflicts in Feminism AbingdononThames, UK: Routledge, Chapter 2.

The Fight for Equal Rights, 1923-1972

The ERA, in varying forms, was introduced in every session of Congress from 1923 until 1971, but it was routinely bottled up in committees and never even received a floor vote until after World War II.

In the early 1950s, the division among feminists became apparent when the "Hayden rider" was attached to the ERA. This provision would have preserved the protective labor legislation deemed so important by many labor unions, and many workingclass women, at the time. Such legislation included laws that mandated a minimum wage, or prohibited long hours or night shifts, for women workers.

Because these laws assumed that women were "different" from men—in the sense of being "weaker" or more in need of special protection— they were vehemently opposed by the National Women's Party. As long as the ERA included the Hayden rider, Paul and the NWP opposed its passage.

Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (Click icon

for citation)

The Republican Party was the first to embrace the ERA. The GOP national platform first included a plank in support of the ERA in 1940, and President Dwight Eisenhower publicly called for the amendment's passage in 1958. But the combination of firm opposition from organized labor, and feminist opposition to the Hayden rider, continued to block the amendment's passage. (Frum, 2000)

Democrats, with closer ties to organized labor, were slower to embrace the ERA. Although John F. Kennedy endorsed the amendment late in the 1960 campaign, he did not push for its passage after winning the White House.

Kennedy did take a number of steps favored by women's rights activists: he appointed a blueribbon national Commission on the Status of Women, which lobbied successfully for passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which banned sex discrimination in pay for many professions. He also issued an executive order banning gender discrimination in the civil service. But most of his women appointees, including Commission chair and feminist icon Eleanor Roosevelt, had ties to the labor movement and opposed the ERA. (Wolbrecht, 2000)

The amendment's prospects improved considerably in the mid1960s, as women's rights activists began to make common cause with civil rights activists, and the rise of a new and more activist "women's liberation movement" focused on a wider range of issues of concern to women.

In 1964, Congress banned workplace discrimination based on gender (as well as race, religion and national origin), in the Civil Rights Act; the inclusion of women in the Act reflected, among other factors, the concerted lobbying of Coretta Scott King, wife of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the NWP's Alice Paul. While the women's rights movement and the civil rights movement did not always see eyetoeye—and tensions between the two would become evident in the late 1960s—their cooperation during the debate over the Civil Rights Act was a critical moment for both.

In 1966 feminist author Betty Friedan—whose 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, had given voice to the frustrations of millions of American women—helped found the National Organization for Women (NOW) and cowrote the organization's Statement of Purpose. NOW, she wrote, would lead "a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes," and would " confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of which is their right."

NOW, which would formally endorse the ERA in 1967, became the driving force in the second wave of American feminism (discussed on the next page). Along with several other feminist organizations, NOW focused on "consciousness raising"—using highly publicized (and sometimes confrontational) events to increase public awareness of gender inequality—coupled with oldfashioned, hardnosed lobbying to advance its legislative agenda.

In early 1970 NOW disrupted a Senate hearing on a proposed Constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18, and demanded a hearing on the ERA. The following August, on the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, it organized the Women's Strike for Equality, a protest of more than 20,000 women that highlighted the need for social, political, and economic equality. (Gourley, 2008)

Coming at a time of profound social and political change in America—a convergence of the civil rights movement, protests against the war in Vietnam, the rise of the counterculture, and the socalled "sexual revolution"—the demand for equal rights for women suddenly seemed less radical than it had, only a few

Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan (Click icon for

citation)

ERA opponents at a legislative hearing in Tallahassee, Florida. (Click icon for citation)

years earlier. (Frum, 2000) Organized labor, for the most part, dropped its opposition, and political leaders of both parties, including President Richard M. Nixon, publicly embraced the ERA.

In 1970 Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan spearheaded a movement to "discharge" the ERA from the House Judiciary Committee, where it had languished for years. Once given the opportunity to vote on the ERA the full House of Representatives approved it overwhelmingly in 1971. The Senate followed suit in 1972 and before the year was out, 22 states had approved it—more than half the total of 38 states needed for formal ratification. The ERA, it seemed, would soon be enshrined in the Constitution.

References

Frum, D. (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York: Basic Books.

Gourley, C.(2008) Ms. and the Material Girl: Perceptions of Women from the 1970s to the 1990s. Minneapolis, MN: TwentyFirst Century Books, 2008.

National Archives (2016) Martha Griffiths and the Equal Rights Amendment. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/griffiths/, May 2, 2016.

Wolbrecht, C. (2000) The Politics of Women's Rights : Parties, Positions, and Change Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press.

The Fight for Equal Rights, 1972-1982

The ERA's apparently smooth glidepath to ratification hit severe turbulence in the mid1970s. In 1972 Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist and former Republican Congressional candidate from Illinois, founded the STOP ERA campaign, an effort by socially conservative women to derail the amendment. STOP was an acronym for "Stop Taking Our Privileges," and Schlafly frequently focused on the impact that the ERA would have on laws designed to benefit women: protective labor laws, alimony and child custody laws, and the exemption of women from the military draft.

Opponents of the amendment often cited the labor movement's primary criticism: that the ERA would take away protective labor laws that women, especially workingclass women, badly needed. But they did not address just working women; indeed, STOP ERA made the case that the amendment was essentially designed to benefit younger career women, while stripping away protections that older women—housewives and mothers without marketable job skills—could not do without.

The emphasis on alimony, as well as on the ERA's impact on Social Security benefits, was a direct appeal to the economic insecurity of many older housewives. More generally, Schlafly and her supporters argued that the ERA, by equalizing the treatment of both sexes, would economically benefit men at the expense of older, unskilled women. (Levenstein, 2014)

But economic arguments were only one element of the larger public campaign against the ERA. The assertion that ERA would expose women to the perils of the military draft resonated strongly—not just

among younger women but among their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers—in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War. Opponents also focused on what they portrayed as traditional values, arguing that mandating equality between the sexes would disrupt families and upset the social order. These arguments were frequently cited by ERA's opponents in the U.S. Senate, a vocal majority of mostly Southern social conservatives led by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina. Ervin, who successfully lobbied the North Carolina legislature to vote against ratification, argued that it would be the "height of folly to command legislative bodies to ignore sex in making laws". (Ervin, 1977)

ERA opponents showed a flair for political symbolism: they presented state legislators with apple pies while declaring themselves "for Mom and apple pie," and they pinned signs reading "Don't Draft Me" on the onesies of baby girls. And their efforts quickly had an impact: as conservative opposition to the ERA grew, the pace of ratification slowed dramatically. After 1973 only five more states approved the amendment, leaving it three states short of the required 38.

With the deadline for ratification approaching, Congress in 1978 approved a threeyear extension of the process, but it was not enough: the clock ran out on the ERA in 1982.

As the following video suggests, the inability of ERA supporters to win quick ratification of the amendment gave opponents time to organize an effective opposition campaign against it. The STOP ERA campaign took the amendment's supposedly simple and uncontroversial goal—"Equality"—and showed it to be more complex and controversial than many people had previously imagined.

While Phyllis Schlafly's opposition was a major factor in the defeat of the ERA, there were larger forces at work, as well. Less than a year after the amendment was approved by Congress the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade (1973), legalized abortion in many cases. While Roe was seen as a victory for the women's rights movement it was a highly polarizing one, galvanizing strong opposition among social conservatives. Frustrated by the Court's ruling, many of those conservatives set their sights on the ERA as a means of attacking the women's rights movement in general. (Greenhouse and Siegel, 2011)

Christina KulichVamvakas, instructor in Government at Suffolk University, discusses the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in this video:

Video Transcript: The Equal Rights Amendment

Christina Kulich-Vamvakas

Ironically, time or length of time is a key factor contributing to the ultimate defeat of the ERA. In comparison to the success of the 19th Amendment, it took women's organizations and prosuffrage organization upwards of 80 years to win passage of the 19th Amendment.

However, the time that it took from 1970 to when the ERA passed through Congress to ratification was too long. It allowed for effective countermobilization of antiERA forces, and it also didn't take advantage of the initial wave of consensus about a broad American principle, namely that of equality.

And the ten years that it languished, essentially, trying to get ratification through the states, allowed people to start to begin to parse what equality actually would mean. Would it mean gender neutral bathrooms? Right? This is an issue that speaks very much to contemporary politics. Would it mean women in combat? Right?

So, the beauty of the bumper sticker principle of equality that everyone could get behind was something that was contentious and debated the longer it took for ratification battles to be fought...and ultimately led to defeat.

Simone de Beauvoir (Click icon for citation)

In a larger sense, the reaction to Roe was an early skirmish in what has come to be known as the "culture wars." The phrase, coined by sociologist James Davison Hunter and popularized by conservative commentator and politician Pat Buchanan, refers to the continuing conflict in American politics between traditionalists and progressives over issues—such as gay rights, gun control, and prayer in school—that speak to personal values rather than economic selfinterest. (Hunter, 1991)

The term "culture wars" first came to prominence in the early 1990s, and in many ways this conflict continues to influence American politics, on issues from gay marriage to health care to immigration policy. But the social conflicts that would give rise to the culture wars had their roots in the 1970s; in the eyes of many historians, the ERA may have been the first casualty of this longsimmering battle.

Second-Wave Feminism and "Women's Liberation"

If the first wave of American feminism was devoted to the idea of political equality—most specifically, winning for women the right to vote—the second wave had a much more expansive agenda.

Formative Influences

It's impossible to say exactly when or where the second wave of American feminism began, but there is general agreement among historians as to its formative influences. The publication of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex in 1949 provided a historical and critical analysis of the causes of women's inequality, and inspired a generation of feminist writers and activists including Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, and Germaine Greer. (Bauer, 2004)

Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, in turn gave voice to a generation of American women—most of whom, like Friedan, were collegeeducated, middleclass, and white—who felt unhappy and constrained in their roles as suburban housewives and mothers. Frustrated by society's expectations, they came to feel, in Friedan's words, " that something is very wrong with the way American women are trying to live their lives today." (New York Times, 2006)

NOW and the "Younger Branch"

The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in 1966, largely to represent the concerns of that generation of women. With Friedan as its founding president, NOW in 1968 issued a Bill of Rights that called for passage of the ERA; enforcement of the federal prohibition of sex discrimination in employment; maternity leave benefits for workers; nongendersegregated education; a tax deduction for child care expenses; and reproductive freedom, including the right to choose abortion, among other demands. (National Organization for Women, 1968) Similar women's groups were formed in this same time period, including the Professional Women's Caucus and the Women's Equity Action League.

At the same time, a "younger branch" of the women's movement was also taking shape. While members of this branch also tended to be white, collegeeducated, and middleclass, these women were mostly under the age of 30 and came to the women's rights movement from the New Left and the civil rights movement, both of which were largely maledominated. The Chicago Women's Liberation Union was among the first of these groups, and similar organizations were formed in Boston, Seattle, New York, and other cities. (Freeman, 1971)

Supporters of Women's Liberation march in Washington, 1970. (Click icon for citation)

"Women's Lib"

Together, these two branches loosely coalesced into the women's liberation movement, known colloquially as "women's lib." Advocating not only for the specific demands in NOW's Bill of Rights but for a more general agenda encompassing political and social equality, the women's liberation movement emerged as a major force on the political and social landscape in the 1960s and 1970s. While there was no formal division of labor between the two branches of the movement, feminist historian Jo Freeman wrote in 1971 that "[t]he older branch has used the traditional forms of political action often with great skill, while the younger branch has been experimental." (Freeman, 1971)

Changing Times

The women's liberation movement was the product of a unique moment in American history. It was a time of roiling social change, as the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and the Hippie movement all challenged longestablished social norms. At the same time, the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, and the gradual erosion of state laws banning contraception, helped usher in the sexual revolution. (Escoffier, 2004) And a major realignment in the American workforce was just beginning to take place, as more women began to move out of "traditional" women's professions, such as teaching and nursing, and started to compete with men in the legal, corporate, and medical worlds. (Donnelly et al, 2016)

Successes and Criticisms

Against this backdrop, the women's liberation movement helped bring about enormous changes: Title IX, mandating equal opportunities for women in higher education; enforcement of the prohibition against gender discrimination under the Civil Rights Act; the integration of women into the armed forces and the U.S. military academies; the expansion of reproductive rights in the 1970s and 1980s; and the entry of far more women into the highest ranks of the corporate, legal, and academic worlds, among many others. Fifty years after the start of the women's liberation movement, allmale clubs and restaurants are things of the past, it is against the law for employers to specify whether a job should go to a man or a woman, and more women are earning bachelor's degrees than men. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012)

Secondwave feminism and the women's liberation movement have, however, been criticized for focusing more on the concerns of middleclass white women than on those of women of color. (Brenner, M. and Luce, S. 2015) And the Equal Rights Amendment, the centerpiece of the movement's agenda in the 1970s, remains an unfulfilled goal.

References

Bauer, N. (2004) [2004]. "Must We Read Simone de Beauvoir?" in Grosholz, E. The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press (2006).

Brenner, M. and Luce, S. (2006) "Women and Class: What Has Happened in Forty Years?" Monthly Review Vol. 58, No. 03 (JulyAugust, 2006), 45 57.

Donnelly, K. et al (2015) "Attitudes Toward Women's Work and Family Roles in the United States, 1976—2013" in Psychology of Women Quarterly Vol. 40(1) (2016), 4154.

Ervin, S. "The Question Of Ratification Of The Equal Rights Amendment CON." Congressional Digest Vol. 56 (June/July 1977), 171.

Escoffier, J. (2004) The Sexual Revolution, 19601980. Retrieved from www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/sexual_revolution_S.pdf, May 3, 2016.

Fox, M. (2006) "Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85." The New York Times, February 5, 2006.

Freeman, J. (1971) The Women's Movement: Its Origins, Structures, and Ideas. Retrieved from https://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/histwom.html, May 3, 2016.

Greenhouse, L. and Siegel, R. (2011) "Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash." The Yale Law Journal Vol. 120, No. 8 (June 2011). 20282087.

Hunter, J. (1991) Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America New York: Basic Books

Lisa L. (2014) "'Don't Agonize, Organize!': The Displaced Homemakers Campaign and the Contested Goals of Postwar Feminism." Journal of American History Vol. 100 No. 4 (2014), 11141138.

National Center for Education Statistics (2012). Fast Facts: Degrees conferred by sex and race. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72., May 3, 2016.

National Organization for Women (1968). NOW Bill of Rights. Retrieved from http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/nowrights.html, May 3, 2016.

Rosenberg, R. (2008) Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan.

Gourley, C. (2007). Ms. and the Material Girl: Perceptions of Women from the 1970s to the 1990s. Minneapolis, MN: TwentyFirst Century Books, 2008.

National Archives (2016). Martha Griffiths and the Equal Rights Amendment. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/griffiths/, May 2, 2016.

Wolbrecht, C. (2000). The Politics of Women's Rights: Parties, Positions, and Change Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Exercise: Further Readings

The following passage is from a scholarly journal article that looks at the strategic mistakes—which stemmed from a misunderstanding of the critical importance of Southern support during the amendment process—that led to the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The passage below is excerpted from "Historical Misunderstandings and the Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment", pages 51 to 54. Click on the title of the article to read, download, and print a copy of the text. These readings are provided by the Shapiro Library. This reading is required. You will have to log into Shapiro Library with your SNHU credentials to access this article.

"The Second Half of the Amendment V Process"

Congressional champions of ERA in the early 1970s simply did not expect problems securing state approval. Neither Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana nor Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan, the measure's principal congressional sponsors, anticipated any difficulty in winning ratification for the ERA. "Maybe some other folks thought of it," Bayh later recalled, "I didn't."

If you're interested in reading more about the Equal Rights Amendment on your own, you might also be interested in these optional readings:

The Equal Rights Amendment, Public Opinion, & American Constitutionalism: An article that analyzes publicopinion polling results to assess the strength of public support for the ERA during the debate over ratification—and the place of the ERA in the history of the America constitution. You can read it at this link. The Rights Revolution: An essay that looks at the fight over the ERA in the context of others "rights movements" in the 1970s, including the movements to expand the rights of gays and lesbians, and those of people with disabilities. This essay makes up a chapter in Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies, by Edward D. Horowitz. You can read it at this link; just click through to Chapter 7.

...A prime reason for such inattention was a misreading of the history of constitutional amending. Here again ERA supporters focused on the limited data of recent experience rather than the much larger body of evidence available from taking a longer view. Since 1960, in addition to ERA, there had been no fewer than eight major efforts to amend the Constitution. Four amendments were added to the Constitution to deal with poll taxes, participation of the District of Columbia in presidential elections, presidential death or disability, and suffrage for 18 to 21 year olds. At the same time, other amendments failed that would have limited the power of the Supreme Court, overturned its rulings regarding legislative apportionment and school prayers, and provided direct popular election of the president. In every one of these cases, a notable struggle occurred in Congress. Four times when the battle was won, states quickly ratified the amendments, all in less than twenty months. In the other four instances, good reason existed to believe that states would have ratified if Congress had approved an amendment. Thus little attention was given to the second half of the Amendment V process [i.e., ratification by the state legislatures]. As a result neither congressional sponsors, supporters such as NOW, nor anyone else prepared to campaign vigorously for ERA ratification in the states.

...Following a century largely devoid of serious amending activity, save for the three Civil War amendments forced on the South, the twentieth century had already produced twenty substantial and often lengthy attempts at constitutional reform. The southern response had shaped the fate of these amendment efforts. Only one of the eleven former Confederate states had ratified the Twenty third, or District of Columbia Presidential Voting Amendment, only two the Twentyfourth or Anti Poll Tax Amendment. Earlier all but three held out against the Nineteenth, or Woman Suffrage Amendment, and none ratified the Child Labor Amendment. Each of these amendments was achieved with difficulty or, in the case of the Child Labor Amendment, not attained at all. But when five of the southern states accepted the Seventeenth Amendment for direct election of senators, it had more easily won adoption. Moreover, throughout the twentieth century, amendments sailed through ratification when embraced by a majority of the southern states, as had been the case with every other amendment from the Sixteenth in 1913 authorizing the income tax to the Twentysixth in 1971 permitting eighteenyearold suffrage. Furthermore, questionable amendment proposals, such as Representative Louis Ludlow's war referendum plan of the late 1930s as well as budget balancing requirements and Senator John Bricker's proposal to restrict presidential foreign policy authority in the early 1950s, gained serious attention in no small measure due to southern support. Every constitutional amendment proposal with southern backing had to be taken seriously; without such underpinning any amendment became problematic and required almost universal endorsement from nonsouthern states for adoption.

Theme: Communicating Historical Ideas | Learning Block 4-4: Final Writing Plan

Up until now, you have been learning about the different components of your writing plan (and eventual historical analysis essay) through the frame of historical case studies. Breaking down the paper into these various components should make the final assessment seem less daunting when you submit the final essay in Theme: Thinking About History, Learning Block 84.

A major step toward that final essay is your writing plan. Between the draft of your writing plan, discussions with your classmates, and feedback from you instructor, you should have a writing plan that is almost complete. You will finish it during this learning block, which will require outside, independent work. You should plan to devote at least one hour to your writing plan in this learning block, and possibly more, depending on how many revisions you need to make.

You will submit your final writing plan at the end of this learning block.

Learning Objectives

In this learning block, you will:

Study a sample writing plan Work on your writing plan Submit your final writing plan to your instructor

Sample Writing Plan

It is time to put the finishing touches on the writing plan for your historical event analysis essay.

Either way, the first step is to delete the section headings (e.g., Sources or Audience and Message).

Next, use transitional language—transitional words, phrases, or sentences—to guide the reader from one section to the next. Transitions help smooth out your writing, by helping readers see the logical connection between two sentences, paragraphs or sections; when readers see how the pieces of your essay fit together logically, it's easier for them to make the jump from one piece to another.

Your writing plan will consist of:

1. A brief description of your topic—that is, the historical event you have chosen to analyze 2. The research question you will attempt to answer in your essay 3. Some primary and secondary sources you plan to utilize 4. A working thesis statement and the message of your essay 5. The audience for your essay and a description of how you plan to communicate your ideas to the chosen audience

Consider the following excerpt from a preliminary writing plan for an essay about the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment:

One important secondary source is How the Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868 – 1914, by Rebecca J. Mead (New York: NYU Press, 2004).

Another good secondary source is New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States, by Marjorie Wheeler (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993).

A good transition will show the reader how these two sources relate to each other logically. For instance, do they both tell similar stories, or do they deal with two different sets of circumstances? Note the transitional sentence in bold italics:

One important secondary source is How the Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868 – 1914, by Rebecca J. Mead (New York: NYU Press, 2004). While this valuable book explains the reasons for the suffrage movement's success in the Western states, it's equally important to understand why the cause of suffrage met such determined resistance in the South. Another good secondary source, then, is New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States, by Marjorie Wheeler (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Finally, add context and explanatory information. What makes your topic historically significant? Why did you choose to use these particular sources—what unique insights do they provide? And how do they help you to present your argument?

When you are done, you should have a document that looks something like the sample below—a sample writing plan on the debate over ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Read it over as a reminder of what's expected in your own writing plan; pay particular attention to the sections on thesis statement, audience, and message.

Jane Doe

HIS 200: Applied History

Southern New Hampshire University

April 12, 2016

Final Writing Plan

For my historical event analysis, I have chosen to focus on the

failure of the Equal Rights Amendment to win strong support from

Republican women during the mid1970s.1 Despite decades of

institutional backing from the Republican Party and the strong and vocal

support of First Lady Betty Ford, the ERA was unable to attract clearcut

support from GOP women, many of whom sided with ERA critic Phyllis

Schlafly.

In looking at efforts by the national Republican leadership to

promote ratification of the ERA, I will pay particular attention to the high

profile advocacy many of the party's "stars," including Mrs. Ford.

Specifically, I will try to answer the following research question: Why

didn't more Republican women respond to their party's concerted efforts

to build support for passage of the ERA? 2

The debate over the ERA highlighted the sharp differences between

the Republican Party's conservative and moderate wings. And probably no

public figure of the time more clearly personified moderate Republicanism

than Betty Ford, whose controversial comments about marijuana,

contraception, and premarital sex attracted considerable media attention

during her husband's presidency.

Did Mrs. Ford's progressive attitudes on these issues, which

endeared her to many Democrats and liberals, affect her credibility with

Republicans and conservatives? Was the emergence of Phyllis Schlafly as

the ERA's most visible opponent a reflection of grassroots dissatisfaction

with the perceived moderate image of the Ford White House? How did the

Republican debate over the ERA reflect the larger Republican fight for the

1976 Presidential nomination between President Gerald Ford and

conservative challenger Ronald Reagan?

In researching the impact of Mrs. Ford's public comments, the first

step is to look at the comments themselves. While Mrs. Ford spoke out

frequently on controversial topics, her October 1975 interview on 60

Minutes, the widely viewed CBS newsmagazine program, caused a real

sensation. A vital primary source, then, would be the transcript of her

August 10, 1975 interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer,

on file at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

(https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/1511773.pdf).3

In this interview, Mrs. Ford's comments about abortion and premarital sex

generated widespread public commentary.

A fuller picture of Mrs. Schlafly's emergence as the principal

opponent of the ERA—and the philosophical and ideological rationale for

her decision to take on the amendment—can be found in her own words.

Another important primary source, then, is Schlafly's critique of modern

feminism, The Power of the Positive Woman (1977; New York: Arlington

House).

While these primary sources illustrate the public and private

thinking of Betty Ford and Phyllis Schlafly, understanding the reaction to

their statements and private efforts requires scholarly analysis. One

valuable secondary source, then, is " Competing conceptions of the first

ladyship: Public responses to Betty Ford's 60 Minutes interview" a

detailed analysis of the reaction to the 60 Minutes interview by Maryanne

Borrelli (2001; Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 31, No. 3 (September

2001); 397414).4 This scholarly article analyzes more than 1,400 letters

that Mrs. Ford received after the interview, almost 67 percent of which

expressed negative reactions.

Another extremely valuable secondary source is Republican

Women: Feminism and Conservatism From Suffrage Through the Rise of

the New Right, by Catherine Rymph (2006; Chapel Hill, NC: University of

North Carolina Press). This book includes an account of Phyllis Schlafly's

decision not to make a public issue of Mrs. Ford's comments, even as the

primary battle between Gerald Ford and Reagan was showing the

divisions in the Republican Party.

Based on my research to date, I will try to support the following

thesis: Even with the strong support of an extremely popular Republican

First Lady, the ERA could overcome neither the divisions within the

Republican Party, nor the conservative appeals of Phyllis Schlafly. 5

I plan to write this historical analysis for > an audience that is

already familiar with the history of the ERA, such as a seminar conducted

by the National Organization for Women.6 This is an audience that does

not need a great deal of background about the ERA itself, but one that

would be interested in new insights into the factors the ultimately led to its

defeat.

In writing for this audience, I plan to focus on the larger political

divisions within the Republican Party that Mrs. Ford was not able to

bridge—but which Mrs. Schlafly was able to take advantage of. Without

devoting much time to the specifics of the ERA debate, with which my

audience is already quite familiar, I will attempt to place this debate within

the larger context of the FordReagan contest, and the ongoing "culture

wars" within the Republican Party and the publicatlarge.7

For this audience, my message will be a clear but perhaps

disappointing one: The problem was not that Betty Ford was too

controversial to rally Republican women to the cause; it's that the

Republican Party was already too divided to come together behind this or

any other issue.8

1 The student describes her topic choice.

2 The student explains what research question she hopes to answer in her essay.

3 The student identifies some primary sources she plans to examine for her essay.

4 The student identifies some of the secondary sources she plans to use in the essay.

5 The student sets forth her working thesis statement. This statement could change, based on subsequent research.

6 The student identifies the intended audience for her paper.

7 The student explains how she will communicate her message to her chosen audience.

8 The student lays out the message, tailored to her audience. Like her thesis statement, the message could change, based on subsequent research.